The things we love the most
by Pure Song
Summary: Meet Sherlock and Athena, two highly dysfunctional people with no hope of ever adjusting to life or people. Both haunted by their past relationships and hopeless of ever finding any real one, discover happiness in the most unexpected of situations...
1. The introduction

The phone had already rung twice, but Mary was in too much of a hurry to pick the phone up.

The phone rang for the third time; frustrated by the persistence of the caller, she picked it up without looking at the caller ID.

"Yes! I heard that you were trying to call me, but honestly? I have no interest in talking to you." replied Mary as soon as she picked the phone up.

"Well Mary that's an awfully rude thing to say to such a close friend of yours." commented the voice on the other side. It took Mary hardly a second to realize who she was talking to.

"Athena?" she asked surprised.

"Well I presumed you knew who you were talking to or have you already deleted my number because I couldn't make it to your wedding?" asked Athena. Mary looked at the time it was 7:40 PM on the clock, John would be home soon and they had dinner reservations at 8:00 PM. Mary knew if she started talking to Athena the conversation would last the whole night.

"Listen Athena, I have plans with john tonight-"

"Great! I would love to meet John."

"No. I mean I can't talk to you right now, I have to go." answered Mary. The doorbell rang. "Listen John is here and I need to go right now or else we won't make it in time for our dinner reservation." Explained Mary as she quickly hurried to open the door expecting to see John; however it revealed to be someone else.

"So where are we going?" asked Athena with a wide smile; still holding the phone at her ear. …..

"So this is what a Watson lifestyle looks like?" asked Athena, who had now entered the living room without any offer.

"So what brings the Great Athena Leonard to the Watson household? I mean such a busy person like you came to visit me. Shall I ask the reason for such a huge honour?" asked Mary fully indicating her annoyance towards Athena. The young girl pushed her black hair behind her eyes and partially bit her lip. She looked upsettingly at Mary and replied.

"I got fired."

Mary's jaw suddenly dropped, "What?" she asked twice.

"I know you are mad at me and I am the last person you want to talk to but-"

"You got fired? Like you lost your job? You lost your job? "asked a bewildered Mary.

"Well technically I am suspended but it pretty much feels like the same thing. I mean it's been a week-"

Athena was interrupted by the sound of the main door unlocking and the sudden bang of the door. Standing in the hallway John furiously started calling Mary. "Oh what now?" commented Mary. She quickly went towards the hallway to meet an angry looking John.

"John! What is it?" asked Mary. She was already annoyed by the sudden appearance of Athena; and John's sudden burst wasn't helping the situation.

"That stupid Sherlock; that…that idiot. Agh! Doesn't have a case so decides to irritate me instead,the entire day I wasted helping him in solving the most stupidest cases but no. that's not good enough for him. Now he wants to come on our anniversary dinner and spend some quality time with us. One day, Mary, one day; I mean all I wanted was today to be special but that idiot. Aghhh!" screamed John while kicking the wall with his shoe. Mary put her arms on John's shoulder.

"Where is he right now?" asked Mary calmly with a gentle smile.

"In the cab waiting downstairs for us." replied John, emphasizing on the "us" part. Mary passed a delicate smile. Before she could reply, Athena popped from the living room.

"I guess I better leave then huh?" asked Athena. While making her way out of the apartment, Mary motioned her to stop. Athena stopped and looked up.

"First we need to talk about your problem and then ours, but we can't do that if I'm still mad at you, now can we?" Mary spoke towards Athena like a teacher speaks to a kindergartener.

"No?" Athena replied not sure where the conversation was going.

"Then you do me a favour and I promise to dedicate the entire day tomorrow to us. Fair deal? Now this favour right now is the only thing, that if you do can I truly forgive you." asked Mary. Athena contemplated she had a bad feeling about "a favour" but she needed to fix her relationship with Mary which her beautiful job had nearly managed to destroyed.

Unwillingly and unsure Athena replied, "Deal!" Mary gently crossed her arm with Athena's and started talking, "Athena, let me introduce you to my husband's best friend."

"Why?" Athena asked bewildered at what the favour was going to be.

Mary looked at Athena with the cheekiest smile ever and replied, "Because he's your date tonight."


	2. The analysis

A/N: Okay so first of in my storyline Sherlock is shown to be 33 years old and Athena is 27 years old. Also Athena is 5 ft 7 inches while Sherlock is obviously 6 ft. I know this is unnecessary details but I wanted to establish that Athena is younger and shorter then Sherlock. Even though I will keep on describing Athena's outlook in my stories if anyone wants to know in particular what she looks like, let me know so I can describe her in my authors note.

Pure Song out!

…

"…you don't smoke or drink." comments Sherlock.

"By the whiteness of my teeth, I presume?" asked Athena. Sherlock nods.

After the quartet had reached the restaurant, John had specifically asked the waiter to place them as far away as possible from Sherlock and Athena. Sherlock tried to complain but John had somehow managed to use his anger to control Sherlock. After everyone had settled down, Athena tried to start a conversation with Sherlock, a gesture to which he rudely responded. This made Athena lash out at him; this made Sherlock deduce that Athena had serious anger issues, something which he (without hesitation) said on her face. Athena, to Sherlock's surprise, responded very calmly to his deduction by saying "I only have anger issues when I am forced to deal with civilians who are sociopaths."

This started a deduction argument between the two. In which they would take turns in deducting some trait or fact about the other person. Either the person would himself explain how he deduced the fact or the other would. The game had been going on for a while now.

"You have no real interest in maintaining yourself but the hair style and the suit shows that you try to create a façade to impress someone. You certainly don't seem like a womanizer, so who are you trying to impress?" comments Athena. She brings her face closer to Sherlock and stares intensely.

"John seems like a simple chap so it can't be him. It has to be someone you are constantly meeting with and you don't particularly like. You are a loner hence you don't have many- or in your case no friends. So who is it?" Athena unintentionally moves in closer to Sherlock. Sherlock who feels a bit challenged at this point doesn't move an inch or say a word, instead he intensely watches Athena observing him.

"Who does a man possibly need to impress so-"Athena stopped. Her eyes widen, she let out a small laugh and relaxed back to her chair "A sibling, isn't it?"

Sherlock didn't move an inch he kept silently observing. "It can't be a younger sibling, because this sibling has an impression on you, you want to be like him but better. And nobody's role model is younger than him."

Sherlock desperately wanted to comment on that, but he didn't want to help her in guessing his relationship status with Mycroft.

Athena gave Sherlock one last look before finally giving her closing statement, "An older brother… You have an older brother who is apparently doing better than you or has always been better than you. But I am presuming that in terms of looks he isn't exactly a super model, and that is your angle. Even though you often challenge him on the intelligence level, your physical appearance is your actual checkmate point with him." It was obvious Athena was feeling quite proud of herself; she wouldn't hesitate to admit that she loved embarrassing men, and Sherlock was no exception. She was convinced that Sherlock wouldn't be able to challenge her at all. In fact she was expecting Sherlock to get up and leave however to her surprise, Sherlock responded.

"You enjoy humiliating men because it gives you a sense of power. Most women use beauty as a method of controlling men, you use your deduction skills-"

"Induction reasoning!" Replied Athena sharply.

"….Inductive reasoning to control men," Sherlock continued, " it is these habits of yours that make men find you undesirable and feel repulsed by you. Something you are very insecure about, however you do this because men tend to harass you often and try to take advantage of you. And you feel justified in treating them like that."

Athena felt as if someone had drained all her energy. Under any given circumstances she wouldn't have hesitated to reply but right at that moment she couldn't even breathe, let go of come up with a reply.

"You hate couples because they remind you of your inability to adjust with anyone or attract anyone, I'm not sure which one it is but I'm pretty sure it's both. You try to maintain yourself in hopes that someone will find you attractive, the traces of your lip stick and blush makes it fairly obvious. However, up until now not even a single man has made an attempt to seduce you, or else you would have taken better care of your appearance." Sherlock pauses for a second moves in closer to Athena and stares directly into her eyes. "In fact any man you have fallen for has rejected you without any hesitation. That is why you are such a dysfunctional woman. That is the true reason why you simply enjoy humiliating men so much."

Athena didn't respond with a single word. She had never in her life been so openly humiliated, she felt her heart burst into a million pieces. Athena felt tears forming but kept holding them back. Sherlock started reading through the menu. He did it so casually that it made Athena feel sick. How could a man be so rude, and not expect a woman to not get offended. She had been humiliated by men before and every time she got offended by them, she would humiliate them equally. Instead of feeling guilty they would tell Athena to change her attitude because no man likes such a disgusting attitude. How was this fair? She pondered, how can a man think that his remarks are funny or not-so-offensive and demean a woman's remark as an insult to a man's pride? Athena had dealt with many pigs in form of men but this particular man, she was sitting with, he was it he was the ultimate male specimen who had pushed her off the cliff. She knew that now whatever inhuman, anti-social, man bashing woman she would turn into wouldn't matter because now the game was over and he had won. She couldn't reply to him and that proved it that she could never really win an argument with a man because men are just that ignorant. The way to win against a man wasn't a logical argument; a woman just can't break a point into a male's head. Athena felt her breathe loosen up, she relaxed herself.

" _Just let the night end so you can go home and never see his face again."_ thought Athena to herself.

"Interesting deduction," commented Athena calmly. Sherlock was surprised, this was usually the point where most women would throw a drink, slap, walk out or shout at him. But Athena she seemed quite calm, that it actually made Sherlock worried about what would happen next.

"Thank you…." replied Sherlock carefully not knowing what to expect. Feeling a bit hungry but not sure what to order, Sherlock waved at the waiter. The waiter who had originally designated their seats approached them.

"Yes Sir?" asked the waiter.

"We will be having whatever our friends are having." commented Sherlock with a smile. He didn't even bother asking Athena what she will be having, and Athena didn't even look up or respond to this.

"Your friends?" asked the waiter.

"The ones we came with?"

"Umm….. Sir this is awkward but your friends left an hour ago."

"Excuse me?" said Sherlock. At this point, Athena had looked up. Sherlock and Athena both looked at each other surprised. Athena without hesitation started getting up.

"Will you please give us a moment?" asked Sherlock with a polite smile. The waiter nodded and left.

"Where are you going?" asked Sherlock.

"I did this whole blind date thing for Mary, since she's not here, I don't need to do it anymore." replied Athena. She started walking away from the table and out of the restaurant. When Sherlock following behind her asked, "Would you like to help me find them?"

"Why do you need my help? You're so talented, you could probably find them without even trying." Athena replied sarcastically.

"I probably can, but your help will speed the process up." Sherlock replied. At this point Athena thought of two dilemmas. One, completely ditching him and going home with this feeling of humiliation; or two, staying back and then using the time period to look for an opening to destroy him. Both sounded horrible, the first one would ensure Athena no further humiliation but the second one would ensure her revenge.

"Okay, let's go." Athena replied.

Athena had chosen revenge.


	3. The findings

"Okay so there are exactly 100 restaurants, bars, café and clubs in total in the entire Marylebone district." Starts Sherlock.

"Mary is pregnant so bars and clubs are off limits." commented Athena. Sherlock looks at her puzzlingly.

"Mary was never a real drinker but not even a single bottle of wine? and an abnormal amount of milk and cheese in the fridge? Definitely pregnant! "

"You could have just asked me." replied Sherlock.

"I was supposed to help you speed up the process, right? Okay, that leaves 70 restaurants and café?"

"Most dinner restaurants don't take anyone without a reservation or after 8:00, so that cuts the number down to 50. John was too formally dressed and excited to take Mary to a fast food restaurants, so that leaves-

"10." said Athena and Sherlock together. They looked at each other for a minute and then started thinking of how they could possibly cut the number further down.

"Wait! I know which one it is. Cab!" Sherlock shouted, while waving his hand in the air. A cab stopped just a few feet away from them.

Sherlock and Athena quickly climbed up and the cab drove away.

* * *

They were standing outside "c'est la vie" café.

After the cab drove away, Sherlock dramatically commented "They are here." Athena kept staring at Sherlock befuddled.

"Planning on telling me how you deduced that?" asked Athena.

"I don't like to unnecessarily show off my skills." replied Sherlock.

"Oh please! You love showing off."

"Well…."

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock sighed quickly and replied, "John and I had a client who worked here. After we had solved her case, she offered us free dinner. John had mentioned that this place was great and he would definitely bring Mary here on some special occasion."

"Oh… Wait, that's not fair. You cheated." protested Athena, Sherlock passed a genuine smile. He stepped in front of the door and grabbed the handle, without turning back he asked.

"Coming?"

* * *

There they stood, slowing waltzing to some old classical song.

Sherlock and Athena stood far away from John and Mary, but the view was clear. Low dim lights hanging on the wall and tall bright candles around the tables, the Watson's stood in the center of the floor while slowing dancing and moving. At the moment Mary stared into John's eyes, smile deeply and shared a deep kiss, before placing her head on John's shoulder.

Athena felt like she was watching some kind of a romantic movie, she had never seen two people so immensely in love that they didn't even need to say anything and they knew what the other person was thinking. Athena had never felt so overflown with feelings, she felt like her heart was both numb and yet bursting with emotions, she felt like crying tears of joy but could feel nothing coming out. Sherlock began moving towards the dinner area. Athena realized she couldn't let anyone ruin this moment for her best friend, which included Sherlock. She quickly grabbed Sherlock's arm and said, "Don't go."

"What?" asked a bewildered looking Sherlock.

"Sherlock, the Watsons are having the most romantic moment of their life, and you are not going to act like an ass and ruin it for them. "

"They have romantic moments every day." Sherlock replied while he aggressively freed his arm from Athena's hand.

"Sherlock listen don't-" Sherlock wouldn't listen, Athena grabbed Sherlock's arm again only this time she used an extreme amount of force which nearly made Sherlock fall back. Athena came in front of him, made a defensive posture with her hands in form of knuckles and her knees apart. Sherlock not aware of what would happen next if he tried to walk towards john again, started walking towards the dance room. He had barely brushed beside Athena, when without any warning Athena punched Sherlock in the stomach forcing his body to bend face front and Athena without even the slightest bit of hesitation threw her arm down at Sherlock's back, making him unconscious.

…


	4. The understandings

" _Don't need this, don't need this, nope." said Sherlock under his breathe, as he kept tossing files out of the drawers._

" _Hello little brother," says familiar voice. Sherlock turns around to find Mycroft standing, "what are you doing?"_

" _Mycroft! What are you doing in my mind palace?' asked Sherlock in an irritated tone._

" _Sherlock? I'm only a figment of your imagination I have no real choice. But the real question isn't what I am doing here; the real question is why does your brain always imagine me whenever you feel stuck in a puzzle? "_

 _Sherlock kept examining the file he was holding in his hand, "Enlighten me Mycroft."_

" _Well Sherlock, it's because I'm your role model. All these years you have been dying to earn my approval, dying to hear me say 'Sherlock, you're the smart one' but I never did and that kept eating you on the inside," Sherlock closes the file and turns behind to look at a smirking Mycroft._

" _After a while you realized you couldn't be like me, you couldn't impress me hence you began to follow the path of a rebel; an anarchist, if I may say, and now whenever you get the chance you try to be as uncooperative as possible so that I may feel guilty and ask for your forgiveness. But that's the thing Sherlock; you know I will never ask for forgiveness on how I treated you. Hence you treat others the way I treated you because you feel that's the only way you can get justice. "_

" _What's the point of your dialogue?" asks Sherlock trying to get Mycroft to shut up._

" _Sherlock, just make peace with the way I had treated you and let the past go. If you live in the past and try to find justice for everything that happened to you, you'll always be stuck in a circle of mistreat and mistreatment."_

" _You convinced me that I was an idiot"_

" _All older siblings do that Sherlock, grow up. Also I will always be smarter than you, you and I both know that. So why live in denial?" replied Mycroft, coming closer to Sherlock, until he was only inches away from his face. "Do you smell that?"_

 _Sherlock began sniffing around, "what?"_

" _Time to wake up little brother." replied Mycroft and brought two of his fingers up to Sherlock's forehead and forcefully pushed him back. Sherlock fell back and everything turned white._

* * *

"Oh my goodness it worked!" replied a familiar voice of a female.

"Of course it works sweetheart. I don't call myself an herb specialist Willy Nilly, now do I?" a male voice replied

"I never doubted you Ernie." replied the female.

Sherlock's vision started clearing up; he realized he was sitting on a wall mounted seat in a bar. It looked like a small bar but seemed well kept and clean unlike most bars Sherlock had seen. Suddenly a binding pain occurred in his head which forced him to hold his temples forcefully.

"Hey… hey… hey… breathe. Here have this drink." the female voice tried to calm Sherlock. The guy called Ernie put a glass of yellowish green juice. Sherlock drank without hesitation. The pain started dissipating slowly, finally when the pain was almost gone Sherlock looked up and saw Athena sitting across him her hand was on his arm for reassurance purposes and an older man in his sixty who Sherlock deducted was the bar owner Ernie whom Athena had been talking to.

"Feel better? asked Athena. Sherlock nodded and kept drinking, it was clearing his senses and that's all he cared for.

After a while Athena pushed a pamphlet towards Sherlock.

"What's this?" asked Sherlock

"Menu; you can order whatever you like. The treats on me." replied Athena shyly. Sherlock remembered how Athena had knocked him out cold. Sherlock was angry at himself at how he wasn't able to deduce how Athena would attack him. "S _tupid little idiot!"_ shouted Sherlock in his head.

"Thank you, but I must leave Mrs. Hudson will be worried." said Sherlock, he quickly finished his drink, and began getting up.

"Sherlock don't go. You're in no mental state to-"

"I'm perfectly fine and capable of-"

Suddenly a loud growl was heard; Sherlock looked around for the source of it to realize that it was his own stomach which made it.

"Sherlock your stomach has been growling like that for the past hour. Eat something first then you can go home." Sherlock unwillingly sat back at his table, Athena handed him the menu again and he finally ordered.

* * *

"You were wrong Sherlock." Athena started.

"Excuse me?" asked Sherlock.

"Your deduction about me; you were wrong. I don't hate couples, in fact I love seeing two people in love. Do I want to experience the same feelings? Yes, I do. That doesn't make me a jealous or a crazy woman. Also, I will have you know that men have tried to seduce me but none of them have managed to- never mind. Third, I am highly insecure about looks but not because men don't approach me, it's because I- again, never mind. Fourth, I don't like humiliating men, it's just when you have to deal with so many ass every day, after a while you get convinced that everyone is one because of which you end up hurting completely nice men. Fifth, I do like maintaining myself, but my job makes it hard for me to touch up my make up all the time. I mean it's like I'm working on a case, I have a coffee drink. My lips get wet so I run my sleeve across my mouth and damn I have lipstick on my sleeve. And I think to myself oh damn really? I mean it's so-"

Athena noticed that Sherlock was irritatingly staring at her as he entered the piece of steak in his mouth without moving his eyes. Athena looks down at her spaghetti and rotates her fork in the dish, "I'm just saying that if you weren't completely wrong, you weren't completely right either."

There was silence again. Being the only two people in the bar at the time, it was fairly easy for the situation to become awkward, luckily Sherlock spoke up.

"Your deduct- inductive reasoning were correct." started Sherlock.

"Pardon?" asked a surprised looking Athena.

"I do try to earn my brother's respect, but honestly he'll never admit to it so I'm like this." said Sherlock with a straight face.

Athena smiles, and says, "I guess it takes a miserable younger sibling to know a miserable younger sibling." Sherlock looks up.

"Older sister?" asks Sherlock.

"And a brother." adds Athena, "Until they were living together with me I let it get to my head but after they moved out I realized that no matter what I did or say they would always think highly of themselves and I would never be able to get them to understand how much I hated the way they treated me. So now I live alone and keep myself involved in my work so I never have to see or think about them. "

"You're an Inspector at the Metropolitan Police Service?" deduced Sherlock.

"Until a week ago I was." added Athena while she went back to her food.

"What happened?"

"I got suspended."

"Why?"

"Sherlock, I don't want to talk about it-"

"Maybe I can help?"

Athena had wanted to talk to Mary the whole night so that she could come up with a strategy to figure out how to get her job back, but Mary was far away from being approached to and Athena was missing her job really badly, and Sherlock was a detective, he could help her out. And the entire time since she had knocked him out cold, she had forgiven him and didn't even care about revenge anymore. Athena decided to trust him, just this once.

"Okay, so here's what happened. A week ago we had received an anonymous tip about an amateur drug gang. We checked the tip and we managed to uncover 60- a lot of it. I can't tell you the amount, sorry. Anyways the drug samples were put in our evidence locker. That very day I had to go really late at night to check on the dress- some evidence from another case. I was the last one to leave the place, and apparently next day the drug samples were gone. Everyone suspected me because apparently I was the last person to go and even the superintendent saw me hence there is no other explanation. I mean every single person in the entire police department knows I didn't do it but since the video evidence places me, they decided to have me suspended. Until the trial that is. I have exactly a month to prove my innocence and not go to jail for this."

Sherlock had been listening attentively; he shifted his position and then asked.

"Do you remember anything odd?"

"Odd? As in like-"suddenly Athena stopped she remembered something.

* * *

 _Athena had just entered the evidence room, her superintendent Carter was leaving; they both wave at each other. Athena begins looking around for the evidence for her case, she looks at the left side of the room near the door, and the drug samples are still there. She then finds the bloody dress and starts examining it after a while Athena starts feeling a bit off as if someone else was in the room the room is not very large but the double rows of shelves can easily hide another person in the room, she starts walking behind the drug samples shelves, when suddenly there is a loud crashing sound some of the evidence from the old cases had fallen. Athena bends down to pick it up._

" _What's going on?" asked the guard who was monitoring the evidence locker from outside, upon entering, "Leonard! You can't take stuff from the evidence locker."_

" _No I wasn't taking stuff. I was just picking up some boxes that fell."_

" _Ha kid, boxes just don't fall like that, the shelves were designed that way."_

" _What?"_

" _Attempts to steal evidence, that's going in your file."_

" _Wait, you can't do that." Athena chases him out of the evidence locker. She tries to explain the situation but the guard refuses to co-operate, Athena sees a shadow heading towards the other side of the hall but is to distracted to check it out._

" _Go put the boxes where they were, now." Athena heads back and starts piling the boxes up on the shelves. She then notices the shelves they all have metal rods in front of the, which would prevent the boxes from falling from the shelves unless a great deal of force had been applied._

" _Hurry up." shouts the guard. Athena quickly puts the boxes again properly the way they were. As she is leaving the hallway she remembers seeing the outline map of the floor. She remembers something very particular that was mentioned, apparently there was a basement on the right side of the evidence room, which was exactly where Athena had seen the shadow walk off to._

* * *

"I did. I saw three things." Athena then quickly tells Sherlock what she saw.

"This means the perpetrator was already in the room and had never left. But when he or she saw you talking to the guard, they used the opportunity to escape undetected with the evidence. Probably hid it in the basement for the night and had shifted it after you had been suspended." concluded Sherlock. Athena began pondering as to how she could argue her point, and prove Sherlock's theory.

Then it hit her.

"The cameras, maybe the camera never saw anyone leaving after me but it sure must have seen who had entered the room but never left. I have to call Brandon."

Athena started getting up quickly but then she realized that she was sort of on a date with Sherlock and maybe in the past she wouldn't have even cared about her date's feeling but Sherlock was a different kind of a date, not only had she beat up the guy but he had helped her out, she had to repay him. Athena sat back down and says, "Tomorrow."

"You should go." persuades Sherlock with a smile.

"Let me at least drop you off so I know you have reached your home safely." asks Athena enthusiastically. Sherlock felt like his legs were a bit numb, so he agrees happily.

* * *

After the cab stops outside Sherlock's apartment building, Athena and Sherlock both get out of the cab. Sherlock reaches his doorstep and says, "I'll be fine from here."

"I know but still I wanted to make sure. My name is Athena Leonard by the way." says Athena, while extending her hand.

"Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock shakes her hand. Then Athena continues.

"Well I better get going. It's pretty late and I have got a long day ahead, so goodnight."

"Goodnight." replies Sherlock. Athena smiles and effortlessly goes on her toes and gives Sherlock a soft kiss on his cheek. They both blush but Athena seems a bit happier than embarrassed, she without looking back heads to the car and just as the cab is about to pull away, looks back and says.

"221 B Baker Street? I'll remember that."

The cab drives away….

* * *

A/N: People I am extremely glad you love my story but can you guys please review my story I want to know how the viewers are finding my story. if you feel uncomfortable reviewing then PM me that works as well.

This is a shout out to Elvira Sliver, thank you for the review and well Sherlock didn't really get upset. So hope you liked what happened. Can't wait to hear more from you.


	5. The silence

Hey Guys! Sorry for the 6 months hiatus. I'll try to post as many chapters as possible in this week. Cheers.

* * *

" _221 B Baker Street. I_ 'll _remember that…."_

Athena's words echo in Sherlock's mind. It had been more than a month since Sherlock last saw Athena. Even Mary wasn't able to contact her. She went by the police station but she was still suspended according to the officer's there.

"What about her apartment?" John asked once.

"She shifted out of the apartment that we shared together and I don't know where she is living right now." replied an upset Mary. Over the course of one month Mary had interrogated Sherlock nearly a 100 times just to know more about her friend's sudden re appearance and disappearance.

He re-focused his thoughts on the case at hand. Sherlock couldn't afford to be distracted. He decided to take a smoking break to focus his thoughts. As he entered the building, he started heading up the stairs when Mrs. Hudson appeared from the kitchen and started,

"Sherlock? You're here. There's someone here to see-

"If it's a distressed prospect client tell them I'm taking a smoking break. If it's the current client," Sherlock thought for a minute, "tell them I'm working."

"What if it's an old client?" asked a familiar voice. Then walked out a familiar face, a face Mary had been so desperately hunting down for the past month.

"Athena?" asked a confused Sherlock.

"I told you I'd remember the address." She replied with a cheeky smile.

* * *

Sherlock had ushered Athena to his apartment. Athena was giving it a quick glance when Sherlock asked, "Any inductions about me?"

Athena chuckled and replied, "I would love to tell you what I have induced so far but I'm rather in a hurry, my break ends in a couple of minutes, so I'll make this quick."

"You proved your innocence?" asked a seemingly informed Sherlock.

"Absolutely correct deduction, I did. And thank you for the insight it was really helpful. It was one of my co-workers Jordan. I can't tell you the details but the drugs were worth a lot." Emphasizing on the word 'a lot'

"He was planning on making some quick cash by taking just a little amount. Luckily, my superintendent testified against Jordan. He said that the remembered Jordan idling around in the evidence room. The camera proved that Jordan went in but never left. Apparently he exited from the basement window, the room to the right of the evidence room, and of course his fingerprints on the drugs. So not only did I win my trial hands down but I have ultimate immunity from ever getting suspected for anything ever." Athena narrated her story enthusiastically.

Sherlock kept staring at her quietly. Athena quickly glanced at her watch and realized that her break was almost over.

"I better get going. Bye." Said Athena and started heading out when Sherlock asked firmly.

"Athena?"

"Yeah?" Athena turned around and replied with a smile.

"Have you talked Mary?" asked Sherlock without breaking his stare.

Athena stood there for a minute, with a little shocked look on her face. Sherlock added, "She's been worried about you."

Athena stood there for a while more before turning around and left without saying even a single word.


	6. The insecurities

"Inspector Leonard?" asked the guard

"Yeah, what is it?" asked a distracted Athena. Only a week back at her job and Athena's desk was flooded with pending cases. Ethan (her partner) had closed a lot of them while she was gone but a couple of the cases were still on going.

"There's someone here to see you." the guard informed.

"If it's the victim's family tell them to wait in the waiting area, I'll be there shortly. If its Ethan with the suspect, tell him to start interrogating and I'll join him shortly."

"It's neither of them Inspector."

Athena looked up from her desk. "Then who is it?" she asked.

"The woman refuses to mention her name but says that meeting you is important." the guard answered. Ethan had often told Athena about how some people would have information regarding a case but refused to mention their name since it might get them involved. Even though in Athena's experience she had never encountered these anonymous tipsters, Athena decided to hear the woman out.

"Okay," she said getting up from her chair, "I'll check it out. Who is she?" Athena asked while walking towards the waiting area which was just across the hall from her desk.

When she had entered the guard pointed at the corner of the room. Athena had imagined the woman to look like a lot of things but never imagined it to be her best friend. She contemplated whether she should go at all. But realizing that Mary had now seen her, Athena realized that she could not turn back now.

"Hey Mary." Athena started as she approached Mary with her hands in her pockets.

"Athena." Mary said quietly while getting up.

"Sit down. Sit down." Athena ushered her while she also sat down beside her, "So what brings you here? Do you have to give me some information regarding an ongoing investigation?" Athena asked jokingly.

Mary didn't smile, instead she looked disappointed.

"There's more to life than cases." she started. Athena expression changed, she knew where this conversation was going.

"Mary…." Athena started.

"No Athena. I'm tired of your attitude. You are the most selfish person I have ever met. You don't care about me at all. I have been worried sick about you and here you are happily solving cases. If you were just going to disappear off again why did you come to me in the first place?"

"Because I needed my friend," Athena defended herself, "but after that night I realized that you had a life now, and I shouldn't bother you anymore. So I decided not to…. bother you."

"You're mad at me that I couldn't give you time? Even though I had promised you that I would dedicate the entire next day to you?" Mary nearly shouted.

"I'm not mad at you." Athena defended herself again.

"Then why disappear?"

"Mary, you are married now. You have enough responsibilities and people to worry about, then me coming in and bothering you."

"Bothering me? Why do you keep saying that? I'm married, yes but that doesn't mean we still can't be friends or talk to each other. Ever since I moved in with John you started this whole 'you have a different life now, Mary' propaganda. What is your problem with my relationship with John that you don't ever want to be in the same place with us?"

Athena looked at Mary with a silent defeated look. Mary understood, at that moment, that she had found the answer to her friend's behavior.

The truth was simple. Athena was a virgin in terms of human relationships. Athena due to her habits could never be with another person. Athena had a few female friends and she was on good terms with Ethan as well. Otherwise, ever other human being saw her as a freak. Her obsessiveness regarding her work, her short-temperateness, and her inductive skills; her habits in general weren't the most attractive thing a man would consider in a woman, at least not the men she had met. Athena had never gotten to the point of even a first date with practically anyone and she was extremely insecure about this fact. It was her peculiarities, that made Mary become best friends with her, but could never get her to have a normal healthy relationship with any man she had ever met. And as much as one couldn't blame the men from finding Athena odd and insane, one couldn't believe that a girl as sweet, loving and vulnerable as Athena didn't have guys fighting over her.

Athena started getting up, however Mary stopped her.

"I am so sorry. I never tried to see things from your perspective. I- " Mary started

"No Mary, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I disappeared from your life when you needed me the most. I'm sorry that you had to make Janine your bridesmaid, I mean that must have been terrible."

They both laughed a bit, before Athena continued, "and I sorry that I didn't even try to attend your wedding or meet up with you later or congratulated on your baby. By the way, congratulations on the baby. May he or she be very healthy and happy."

Mary mouthed a thank you and Athena continued, "The truth is, I was afraid. I was afraid that if I saw you with all the things in life that I had always wanted, I might burn in jealously and do something stupid to take it away from you. And I loved you too much to hurt you like that; hence I thought it was best if I completely disappear from your life. Better safe than sorry, right? And I wouldn't have showed up on your 'first time meeting each other' anniversary had I not gotten suspended, but I really needed help in getting my job back."

Mary, without any indication, hugged Athena. It was a tight 'I love you' kind of a hug. The kind you do when you are truly happy.

"Hey…" Mary started after releasing Athena, "I'm pretty insecure as well you know. I'm jealous about how pure and good your heart is. Better safe than sorry? Who thinks like that anymore? Sure you dislike and hate people and curse them but when you do care about someone you do everything in your power to take care of them and protect them. I feel as if I'm incapable of doing that for John. Of course this baby has helped me feel a little more emotion than I ever could. But I'm not like you and it kills me. I mean why did John even marry me? I am a terrible wife I mean he doesn't even know the details of the things I've done."

"You haven't told him?" asked Athena.

"Oh he knows about me."

"You told him?"

"He found out, thanks to Sherlock. That idiot tricked me into admitting it, but John accepted me regardless. And I am eternally grateful to him for that, though I do everything possible to not show him that." The girls laughed. Mary continued, "So don't worry we both are messed up in our own ways and are secretly jealous of the other person."

They hugged once more.

"I missed you." Mary stated.

"I missed you too. And I promise from now on I'll try to be as much as a part of your life as I can." Athena promised.

"Same here." Mary replied.

Finally after they broke out of the hug pose, Mary questioningly said, "You are coming to the Baby Shower right?"

"When is it?" Athena carefully asked.

"In two weeks. I'll confirm the venue and timings"

"Okay, I'll come." Athena promised.

* * *

Mary and Athena decide to have lunch together that day. Mary had to wait a couple of hours but as soon as Athena's break started, they both rushed off to a nearby restaurant. Despite being very hungry they spent the entire time talking about what had been going on in their lives for the past year. Mary talked more, mostly about John and Sherlock. Athena laughed and commented more on Mary's stories then actually talk. After a while, Mary asked Athena how her date with Sherlock went. To which Athena told her every detail of that night. Mary kept laughing during the entire narration.

"Wow! If I had known that's how interesting things would be I would have definitely dragged you to my wedding. Who knows? Perhaps you would have helped solve the case faster?'

"The case?" asked a bewildered Athena. Mary told her the events surrounding her wedding.

"Mary! You had such an exciting wedding and you didn't tell me this?"

"Let's not start this chapter, shall we?" replied Mary. But Athena kept complaining on how she missed the 'wedding of the century.'

"So my break ended half an hour ago. " Athena stated while looking at her watch, "I better go. I'm so sorry for leaving so suddenly but cases await me. I'll definitely meet you soon."

"It's okay. You should go. I'll see you soon." Athena quickly paid her bill, embraced Mary and exited the restaurant.

* * *

A/N: Hey guys, If you have an ideas, opinions, suggestions or any thing in particular that you would like to have happen, let me know via reviews or PM's. I'll be highly grateful and thank you everyone for liking and following my fan fic, I'm highly grateful.


	7. The alliance

"Rogers, Leonard, my office." Superintendent Carter yelled at Ethan and Athena.

Ethan and Athena quickly got up from their desk and entered carter's office, closing the door behind them.

"Half an hour ago, eight bodies of women were found. I don't know the details regarding them but you two will be the investigators on this case from our department."

"As in the lead investigators?" asked Ethan.

"Actually that's the real news I needed to give you two. As eight bodies were found the Scotland Yard thought they should take over the case since it looks like a high profile one however, since the bodies were discovered by our officers, and since half of them fell into our jurisdiction; We were able to negotiate a deal: they could lead the investigation as long as our officers were on the team as well. They agreed without hesitation. That means you two will now be working with the Scotland Yard." Carter replied without looking up.

"What?" asked a worried Athena.

"Okay Sir." replied Ethan, while looking at Athena. Carter indicated Ethan to leave the office.

"Athena, you are one of the best officers on this force and the only person who can work with Ethan. I understand that this is a daunting task but we as the department need you." explained Carter, "hence, grab your gun and your badge and move out. It's time to face your past Leonard."

* * *

Ethan and Leonard arrived 20 minutes later at the first crime scene.

"I'm going to introduce myself. "Commented Ethan as he rushed off towards the group of people. Athena however stood near the car and observed the crowd it had been five years since she had left the Scotland Yard. Even though she saw new faces, Athena felt sure that someone from her time here would show up and treat her as if she was a traitor that the Scotland Yard had labeled her to be.

" _But it's been like five years now right? Probably nobody remembers me"_ Athena thought to herself.

Athena grabbed her breath, exhaled and started walking towards the group of investigators to whom Ethan had been talking to for a while. Athena had just made it to the group when Ethan pointed towards her saying, "and that's my partner."

At this point her phone buzzed so Athena looked down at her pocket when she heard a familiar voice say, "Well, Well, if it isn't the great Athena Leonard."

Athena could have sworn that she had heard that voice before; she looked up and saw a man in a suit with grey hair smiling at her arms crossed.

"Greg?" she asked with a smile.

Greg opened his arms and she rushed towards him and hugged him back.

"Greg Lestrade, it's been a while." Athena replied as she moved out from the hugging position.

"It's Detective Inspector, Miss Leonard." Greg corrected Athena with pride.

"Inspector Leonard." Athena corrected Greg. Greg smiled and apologised.

"Ahem." coughed Sally. Greg straightens himself and continues,

"Athena meet Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, she's my partner."

"Nice to meet you." replied Athena said as she extended her hand towards Sally. Sally nodded in response while shaking Athena's hand.

"And I presume you have already met my partner, Sergeant Ethan Roger?" Athena questioned as she motioned towards Ethan.

"Yes we have. He's a fine fellow." Replied Greg enthusiastically. To which Ethan flashed his best smile.

"The woman was made unconscious using chloroform; her scent coming from her mouth indicates so. Then her head was cracked open from behind by a heavy object. The killer however still chose to slice her throat for some reason, possibly in a form of ritual or sentiment. Okay, we are done here, Lestrade let's move on to the next body shall we?" commented a man while getting up. He turned around to reveal himself to be Sherlock.

"Sherlock?" Athena questioned. Sherlock turned his attention towards her , gave a small smile and replied,

"Hello there."

"You know Sherlock?" asked Sally in bewilderment.

"Yeah, long story, "Athena replied to Sally; then turning towards Sherlock, "So, you work with the Scotland Yard?"

Before Sherlock could reply, Sally commented, "He doesn't work with us, he just consultants us."

"Ah." Athena commented, sensing animosity in Sally voice for Sherlock. Silence followed in the group for a minute. Athena signaled Ethan to do something. Ethan quickly began examining the crime scene and pretended to call Athena towards him. Then, when things seemed to have gotten normal between Sally, Sherlock and Greg, they rejoined the group commenting that they should go and check the other bodies.

"Let me just wrap this place up, then we can get going." announced Lestrade.

"Actually, I was thinking that we could spilt up and check out the bodies, that way will we cover more ground faster." explained Athena.

"Okay then. Sherlock, Rogers and Leonard, you three take a head start. It could take us a while. And we will all meet up at Scotland Yard's head Office in 3 hours?" instructed Greg questioningly.

"Sounds great, let's go boys." Athena commented looking at Sherlock and Ethan.


	8. the revelation

The phone rang thrice before carter finally picked it up and responded, "Superintendent Carter here."

"Sir, we have some bad news." answered the voice on the other side.

"Like you kids ever give me any good news. What is it?" asked Carter.

"Sir it's regarding your daughter." said the voice gravely.

…

"We have eight women dead who have nothing in common in terms of physical appearance, age or occupation except that they were all killed in the exact same manner; according to Sherlock this job can be associated to be a serial killer."

"However his modus operandi indicates that the way he killed them was more personal like he was trying to give a message in the form of a puzzle." Corrected Sherlock

"That and reason of killing is yet to be determined" finished Greg.

"What about the victims? Any identification of them?" asked John.

"We are doing the usual procedure, checking out missing complaints and putting in pictures in the newspaper/ internet etc."

"Actually Lestrade," commented Ethan while entering the room with Athena, "you don't need to do that."

"We know who the victims are, well who are they related to, to be more specific." Explained Athena.

"Oh really?" asked Sally, even Sherlock looked at Athena skeptically. Athena looked back at Ethan who reassured her. Athena took a deep breath and went towards the white board and began writing names under the heading _VICTIM'S CONNECTION._ After writing the fifth name Greg grasped and said"No that's not possible."

"It is." commented Athena.

"How did you figure it out?" asked a bewildered Greg.

"I recognized two of the victims, more importantly whom they are related to and I thought back to the most basic connection they both shared."

"The Clarke case" said Greg, Athena and Ethan in unison.

"Ahem, what are you all talking about?" asked an annoyed Sally.

"The Clarke case was one of the most popular cases in the law enforcement." Replied Greg.

"More like the least popular case." Commented Ethan.

"How come I've never heard of it?" asked an irritated Sherlock.

"Because the case was never went to trial." Replied Ethan.

"What was the Clarke case exactly?" asked John in curiosity.

"Six years from today there was a case regarding a woman name Louise Clarke who was a lower staff member of the Scotland Yard. She had been found dead outside her apartment building with a head injury due to the fall and a slit throat which was the cause of death. According to the witnesses she fell from her apartment. At that time, our seniors tried to close the case by claiming that it was a suicide."

"Her throat was slit." Commented a bewildered John.

"Her father, James Clarke, was told by the medical Examiner that Louis Clarke had slit her own throat. However he didn't believe the ME for a second and filed a case against Will Clayton claiming that he had murder his daughter."

"The dead detective Will Clayton? "asked Sherlock and Sally.

"Who?" asked John.

"He was a senior inspector at the Scotland Yard and had a bit of a reputation with the ladies." Answered Greg.

"John Clarke, the father of the victim, claimed that Will was having an affair with his daughter and that he killed her because she was pregnant with Will's child, because he had an incriminating voice message of his daughter which indicated so." Explained Athena.

"If this news had gotten out it would have been the end of the Will Clayton's detective regime." Added Ethan.

"You said the case never went to trial why is that?" asked Sherlock.

"Will Clayton was you all know was the head of the Scotland Yard's Homicide Division. He used his position to either threat, discourage or stop everyone from actually taking the case, which became a problem when the court asked them to do a proper investigation. An inspector who was assigned to this case was constantly threatened or not given resources to do a just investigation. When she did manage to gain some evidence to bring Will in for questioning her evidence was stolen. After the theft it became obvious to even the most ignorant investigators that she was only given the case to show the court that they had done everything in their power to solve this impossible case." Replied Greg.

"Funny thing is the same thing happened in the Metropolitan Police. Turns out our then Superintendent was good friends with Will Clayton. And he had openly denied anyone from taking this case and gave it to a newbie who was denied the necessary resources to solve the case. The poor guy went back and forth from the Metropolitan Police to the Scotland Yard trying to find justice for his daughter. Until one day he just fell of the grid and was never seen again." Said Athena dejectedly.

"So, the conclusion of this story happens six years later with these women. The women targeted have a very specific connection they are all blood relatives of all the officers who were linked to this case. One of them is the daughter of our Superintendent who was the senior partner of the newbie and the second is was our then head, Daniel Bowman's wife. Which woman is exactly related to whom on this list is yet to be determined." Concluded Ethan.

"So he blamed all these people for not solving the case and killed the closest women in their lives in the exact manner so that they feel his pain. Sherlock? That's the message!"

"Thank you John not that the thought had already crossed my mind twenty minutes ago."

"Great we know the victims and who the killer is. Now we just need to find the Scotland Yard's officer and the newbie and find out where John Clarke is." Stated Sally, as she began dialing on her phone.

"Actually there's no need to find them." Started Athena.

"Why not?''

"The Scotland Yard investigator and the newbie officer was the same person."

"Great. That's even better. Who was it?"

"It was me."


	9. The thought room

_"There it was the body of the girl she had just seen a month ago. How happier the times had been when they had said goodbyes in such a genuine and happy way that I actually considered staying in touch with her. Didn't she just talk to Peggy last week about meeting up when she would come to London? Why didn't I tell her that there was no need for it and made her go back home to Scotland?_

 _"Athena this is what happens when you attach people to yourself. Your judgment becomes clouded. Your emotions make you stupid."_

 _"She could have been alive Athena ; but no Peggy died because of you. Just like all the people that will die if you choose to attach yourself to them because you are not a normal person Athena."_

"So you expect me to believe that the entire Scotland Yard and Metropolitan Police were conspiring against you?" asked Sally skeptically.

The more in details Athena went the more she realized how plausible her story sounded, had she been on the other side of the table she would have dismissed the entire story. But that was what had happen. It wasn't fair and she had suffered both physical and emotional pressure because of that case and she was only a rookie then. Nobody saw that, even Sherlock was looking at her skeptically even though he knew that Athena wasn't lying and that made her feel betrayed, but why?

'For there to be betrayal, there would first have to be trust.' thought Athena. Questioning herself whether she was stupid enough to trust Sherlock. Even though she had never felt more related to anyone, she knew that people like Sherlock can't be trusted.

"Mary trusts him, John trusts him. And they aren't stupid."

"I guess that means he can be trusted right? I mean we did have a pretty intimate conversation that one time."

 _"Did you honestly think that on conservation like that was going to make somebody like Sherlock like you? Or make him loyal to you? Don't be so naive. You are Athena Leonard, you of all people need to realize that people are eternally selfish and that you can never trust someone. You need to remember this, you are a dysfunctional person that the window to be normal closed behind you years ago now you must rise as a higher entity than yourself and make yourself utterly indispensable for the police force."_

 _"Nobody should be able to mistreat you ever again. But ultimately you need to remember Athena you were born alone in this world you will walk through this life alone and die alone then why would you bother yourself by investing in other people?"_

 _"Exactly! What are you doing at this stupid party anyways?"_

"Party?" Athena thought, suddenly Athena realized that she was at Mary and John's house. She was sitting near the food table and at least 20 minutes must have passed since she had been in her thought room.

"Holy God, I have to get out of here." thought Athena.


	10. The vow

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey guys!

Sorry for the late updates and the apologize about the weird formatting of chapter 10 (not sure what happened) and thank you so much galwidanatitud for mentioning the problem in the review. I probably wouldn't have ended up noticing it for days.

Please everyone feel free to review or message me if you have any questions, comments or ideas regarding the story I am always happy to hear your thoughts.

Bye.

* * *

"Okay I'll calmly go to Mary and tell her I feel sick and leave. She wouldn't sense a thing." thought Athena as she tried to build the momentum to approach Mary when Greg appeared and started.

"Wow that was rude."

"Excuse me?" Athena asked in confusion, she could literally feel her train of thought crashing as she started talking to Greg.

"Well, I understand that you didn't want to converse with that man. But zoning out on him? That's just rude."

"I'm sorry; I just went into my thought room."

"You know," Greg started after sipping his drink, "Sherlock has a similar mind state. He calls it the mind palace."

'Sherlock?' Athena thought. Now Athena remembered what had happened. She was talking to some man at the party who had struck up a conversation with her when she glanced towards Sherlock and realized how well he blended with John and Mary and thought how people like Sherlock and herself weren't supposed to blend with people. Right? Perhaps she was wrong.

Perhaps she was the only person who wasn't supposed to blend with people.

That thought made her suddenly feel very lonely.

* * *

Whilst Greg kept talking about Sherlock's annoying habits, it didn't take him long to realize that Athena had longed zoned out again. He didn't blame her; after all she had had a tough week. Being reminded about her first case, which had been a torture and a failure, then being grilled by Sally and Sherlock for five hours about how they didn't believe the circumstances surrounding the investigation. After which they had to show eight bodies at the same time to eight grieving families out of which she knew one of the victims personally. Also having to meet all her old colleagues, whose faces she had long said goodbyes to. To be have that all comeback to you in less than one week would be emotionally and physically exhaustive for anyone.

"He didn't blame her but he needed her to be okay. Athena had changed drastically from the way she was back in their university days then how she was now. He needed her to be okay.

"Athena? Hey?" said Greg

"Yeah?" replied a surprised looking Athena.

"You're zoning out again."

"Sorry." Started Athena with a chuckle.

"I'm sorry about everything that's going on. I can't imagine how hard it must be on you." Greg commented earnestly.

"Athena sighed and started "I just," she trailed off and started again, "don't feel like myself. I was in a good place and suddenly," Athena gestured her frustration by clenching her fists and releasing them.

"I don't want to think about it. I just don't want to think right now." Athena said suddenly.

"Greg grabbed her drink and indicated towards the staircase. Athena wanted to say that she was leaving and go home but she realized that she would be once again locked with her thoughts that she honestly had no strength to think about. She needed to not think right now and nobody sounded better to sit down with and not think about everything that was going on than Greg.

"Athena had always been fond of Greg since they had met at the Police University nine years ago. They had spent a good amount of time together. She might have even had feelings for him but those vanished when he started dating Victoria whom he later married. Athena often felt sad that Greg was with Victoria because if it came down to ever considering herself with anyone Athena always knew it would be Greg.

"They moved towards the staircase which was quite deserted as they began settling down to sit on the stairs, Athena's eyes fell on Greg's finger and she exclaimed, "Greg? Your ring is missing!"

"Greg tells her that he got divorced.

"But you loved Victoria? I know that when time passes that things aren't as magically as when your newly married but you could have gone to couples therapy." Athena started.

"She was having an affair." Greg stated plainly.

"Athena was silent for a moment before asking, "How did you find out about her?"

"Sherlock told me."

"Athena looked towards Sherlock in slight admiration but stopped.

"I'm sorry Lestrade."

"No worries, it's been two years."

"Two years?" Exclaims Athena.

"Can we please not talk about my marriage?"

"Why not?"

"It's personal."

"Well forgive me for wanting to be informed regarding what has been happening to my friend for so long."

"A friend you haven't been in touch with for 5 years?"

"Guilty; however, you didn't make any attempts to stay in contact with said friends."

"Touché." Replied Greg slyly.

"Athena and Greg sat there and talked about their past for almost an hour when Mary came up and informed them that the party was over. Realizing that it would be rude to leave now, Athena and Greg offered to help with cleaning up. After which Greg and Athena left together whilst walking to the car Greg started.

"You know what Leonard?"

"What Lestrade?" asked Athena as she opened her car.

"It was really nice seeing you again."

"I also enjoyed meeting you again Lestrade."

"No what I mean is, "said Greg whilst holding the car door, "I really enjoyed our conversation I feel like we haven't talked like this since our university days. I really missed you Athena, I know things didn't go in your favor when we first joined the Scotland Yard and I should have been there for you and I wasn't. But I don't want to lose our friendship again. I can't believe I didn't help you then but this time I'm here. No Victoria, no distractions, nothing to stop me from being there to support you. Until we catch John if you need a partner or just a friend, know that you will always have me."

"Greg," Athena started.

"I know that you aren't good with the emotional baggage so you don't need to say anything just remember what I said. Okay?"

"Athena nodded. Greg came forward and tightly hugged her afraid that if he let her go that she would vanish but none the less he let her go. Athena got into her car and drove away.


	11. The final victim

"Inspector Leonard?" asked the guard.

"Yeah Sam; How can I help you?" replied Athena without looking up from the files she and Ethan had been working on.

"There's a man here to see you. He claims to have information on the octa murderer case, but he only wishes to speak to you." Sam concluded.

Athena and Ethan glanced at each other. They had been having a tough week so Athena decided to take the lead.

"Worst case scenario it's a fake right?" Ethan commented directing his attention back to the files.

"Yeah." Athena chuckled.

"Shall I ask him to wait at the waiting area?" asked Sam.

"No, its okay. Bring him to my desk."

Sam quickly moved, called the man who had been in the waiting area inside the offices are. Athena began organizing her desk to not seem like a complete mess. When she did turn to glance at the man, she noticed that he was wearing a cap and a large orange jacket and walking facing downwards.

"Probably to hide himself." Athena thought.

When the man was right in front of Athena's desk she turned around to greet this mysterious man. However when Athena turned around to get a good look of the man her blood ran cold.

"Hey Ethan?" called Athena, whilst she was putting on her coat, "I'm going out for a bit."

"What happened to the case lead?" Ethan asked puzzled.

"Oh just a silly lead about seeing a person near the area but not remembering anything about the man."

"God!" Ethan exclaimed, "I hate such leads."

"I know." Athena chuckled.

"So where are you off to? Is it a case lead? Ill join you." Ethan commented as he reached for his jacket.

"Oh no, it's something personal that just came up."

"When will you be back? We have a meeting with the Scotland yard at 3:00 PM." Ethan reminded Athena.

"Yeah I might not be able to attend that. But you handle the meeting right?"

"Yeah I can. See you later then?"

Athena passed a smile but didn't respond.

She quickly waved at her colleagues who passed a look at her. As she reached the waiting area she joined the orange jacket man once again.

"Put your gun inside. I'm coming with you aren't I?" Athena whispered to the old man.

"How do I know you didn't tell him anything?" He brushed the gun against Athena.

"This is between you and me. Ethan has no involvement in all of this."

The old man passed a smile, "Fine by me."

Athena had just exited the building when a familiar voice caught her attention.

"Athena? Where are you going?"

She turned towards the voice and saw it was Sherlock who seemed confused why Athena as leaving at the eleventh hour before the meeting.

"Have a lead of another case. Going to investigate it." Athena lied.

"I thought you two were off from your regular cases?"

"If we aren't getting any leads on the Octa-murderer case, so might as well work on the other ones."

Sherlock didn't buy Athena's story.

"What are you doing here?" Athena asked trying to change the subject.

"Well I require some resources that apparently your organization possesses and I was instructed that they could only be used under your scrutiny."

"Well I won't be able to entertain you as I have some lead to check out. As you he see this poor man has been waiting patiently to take me there." Athena pointed towards the orange jacket man, "Now if you will excuse me I have to go."

"Athena you should seriously consider holding other cases until this case is solved."

"Excuse me Sir, but if you would do all of us a favor and just use your brain in figuring out who the murderer is, instead of pestering me, then maybe we could find the perpetrator."

"Excuse me?" asked Sherlock confused.

"Good day." Athena replied and left.

"Please Sherlock," thought Athena, "if you are as smart as you claim to be, please figure out what I just said."

The man directed Athena to sit in the driver's seat.

"Here you go the keys. Start the car." He ordered.

Athena obeyed and drove off.

"Rogers?" Sherlock asked

"Mr Holmes?" asked Ethan surprised, "How can I help you?"

"Aren't sergeants supposed to go with their inspectors when investigating a lead? And weren't you two ordered to not work on any case until the octa-Murder case was solved?"

"Yes and yes. But I believe that's not why you are here?"

"I just met Athena outside and she claimed to be investigating a lead with the man who was with her."

Now Sherlock had Ethan's attention, "That's odd, she told me that she was going for a personal work."

"Personal work?" Sherlock quickly observed the room he noticed how all the officers had guns on their waists.

"Self-defense in case of an attack wasn't an issue, then what was?" Sherlock thought.

"This is a Police Office she could have easily disabled the man and arrested him unless .." Sherlock started talking to himself out loud.

"Holmes? Disable who and why?"

"She said to me to use my brain to figure out who the killer is."

"But we already know who he is."

"Exactly, she was indicating whom not who. What day is it today?"

"30th July?"

"Ethan grab your gun and your keys."

Ethan reflexively grabbed all of his items. And they quickly exited the building.

"What's going on Holmes?" asked Ethan as he started the ignition of his car.

"I think Athena just let James Clarke kidnap her so that his murder spree can end."


	12. The truth

**A/N:**

Hey guys. thank you so much for reading my fan fiction. It really means a lot to me.

OMG I have 48 followers on this Fan fiction *screams in happiness* *Eternal Epps*

Also a huge shout out to galwidanatitud. Thank you for being such a dedicated reader I really appreciate your reviews.

Also feel free to review, like, follow my fan-fiction or DM me to get to know me.

Pure Song out!

* * *

"Holmes? Don't take this personally but where am I supposed to be driving to?" asked Ethan as was reserving the car.

"Do you remember Louise Clarke apartment address? We have to go there." Sherlock answered as if that was the most obvious answer.

"No Holmes; I wasn't on the police force back then."

Sherlock looked at Ethan with the most disapproving look. Then quickly pulled out his phone and began typing. After a minute, he found the address online and showed it to Ethan. Ethan quickly read it, turned on his siren and began speeding along the direction.

"Don't turn on the siren." said Sherlock, as he turned the siren off." You'll gain unwanted attention. If we want to catch James, he can't know that we are after him."

"How do you know he will even be there?"

"The man is theatrical Rogers. It's his daughter death anniversary today. What better way to end his killing spree then with the death of the detective that was the center of the entire case?"

"Good lord."

Ethan stepped on the accelerator and sped away.

* * *

"Remember this apartment?" James asked.

"How could I forget? I spent so much time over here." Athena replied.

James had bought Athena to Louise apartment. It was in a much worse shape than five years ago but it looked more or less the same. A poor, simple, small and innocent flat; unaware of the crimes that would take place. The police that had flooded this poor flat would once again return. Once invading the privacy of the flat.

"The poor owner of the building didn't know who was renting this room to. Sad fellow; I already feel guilty about when the police will start asking him questions. But what can you do? Somebody has to make a sacrifice for a greater cause." Informed James proudly.

Athena wasn't really paying attention to his story. She was just surprised on how she wasn't planning on escaping or disabling the man. How quickly she had accepted an invitation to death that she had been yearning for a while now.

" _Well not like this but oh well._ " Athena thought to herself.

During her drive with James, Athena came to the realization that she honestly didn't care if she was alive or dead. Her life hadn't turn out the way she had planned, she was emotionally devastated and she had never felt more hopeless. Athena began recalling university days and how hopeful she had been of the future. She was acing her classes, killing all the training sessions and solving the toughest case studies her teachers gave her. She had finally found a profession through which she could harness her talent and Greg. Greg was perhaps the only person who was neither jealous of her nor thought that she was dysfunctional. To him Athena was a person and she loved that about Greg. How Greg could just make her feel like nothing was or had to be complicated. He just made her feel so normal and happy.

" _But then Greg started dating Victoria, and I got the Clarke case, then my family thought I was becoming a sociopath and Mary started dating John."_ Athena with frustration reminded herself.

" _Then to escape all of this I immersed myself in my job. And then this case came up again and reminded me how I had failed at very thing I was so proud of. And this had to end; this raw endless frustration, constant hopelessness and pain just had to end. If death is the way out of it so be it_." Athena concluded her thought.

She knew exactly how James was planning on killing her. He would slit her throat and then push her down from the balcony. That's when she would grab him and they would both fall to their deaths, finishing the case where it had started all those years ago.

"You are awfully quiet? Planning an escape dearie? James asked as he made her sit down on a chair with her hands tied behind her back.

"You are about to kill me. What do you expect me to do sing and dance to the F.U.N song?" Athena asked rhetorically.

"I assumed you give me a little resistance. Then again you are a pathetic detective. You couldn't even solve my daughter's murder."

"Bullshit!" shouted Athena. Even James turned around in surprise, "You of all people know who hard I worked to solve your daughter's case. You knew that every time I would finally land evidence somebody would steal it. I actually left my job at Scotland Yard to come to Metropolitan Police Service to find justice for your daughter. It wasn't my fault that even my new superintendent was mixed in with Will Clayton. It wasn't until both their deaths that we were able to conclude enough evidence to send the case to trial by that time you had disappeared and we had no complaint on whose basis we could have sent it to."

"Yes, a very inefficient system of justice." Replied James as he filled a syringe with a clear solution and tapped it twice. "Who do you think was behind the deaths of both your seniors?"

Athena had always suspected foul play regarding the circumstances around their deaths but James being behind their deaths?

"You never wanted justice, did you? You wanted revenge, and you knew that wouldn't happen if you worked with the system." Concluded Athena.

"Wow you actually figured something out. Good for you, turns out you aren't as pathetic as I thought you were." James replied sarcastically.

"If you were planning on murdering everyone. Why did you go for their women why not them? And why are you planning on killing me when I had nothing to do with this?"

"Turns out killing eight police officers at the same time is quite a daunting task. But killing their wives or daughters is not. And dear Athena, I had planned on killing Will Clayton since day one but when you made me believe in the justice system and hope that Louise being part of the Scotland Yard family would mean her killers would be brought to justice I actually believed you. And then you failed to do anything at all and Will Clayton and his friends kept going about their lives merrily. It destroyed any morality I had left in me."

Athena at this point had lost he mind and got up, "Your stupid daughter's case has ruined my entire life and your telling me that you are somehow justified to murder people? That because I couldn't deliver my promise, I deserve to die?"

"Mr Clarke, I have been pressurized, abused, threatened, assaulted and stabbed twice on two separate occasions. Whose marks will always remain and whose emotional trauma will never go away. People were afraid of helping me because they didn't want to end up in the state I was. I had no resources, no help and no experience and you are giving me crap about your spirit breaking?

I haven't slept in peace in the past five years of my life. Because every time I would close my eyes I would see you and your daughter reminding me about a promise that I had made. Because of this I have worked so hard to never let another case go cold, that I became a social wreck. And the funniest part? All of this happened because your daughter found an easy way of making money. "

"What do you mena?" asked James in confusion.

"Your daughter was selling herself for money to all the senior body of Scotland Yard. And based on the text messages I read she was more than enjoying her job. And I'm pretty sure she would have continued the business had she not gotten pregnant and demanded Will Clayton half his property for the child. Threatening him to expose his compromising videos she possessed."

It was obvious that James couldn't believe his ears. But Athena continued.

"Carter and I had decided to keep this buried between ourselves. But hey if I'm going to die might as well tell you how much of a sweet and stupid person your daughter was. " said Athena with the most sarcastic smile she could make.

"Oh by the way, you Sweet daughter wasn't sending you her entire paycheck. She was just sending you a fraction of money she was making. I am aware you were concerned that she was not saving any money for herself but in reality she was doing quite well."

James stared at her in horror.

"Your stupid daughter thought that she could win against Will Clayton? For that man his name was everything, so murder would have been a very small price to pay. She knew that but kept pestering him."

"You are lying." James said in bewilderment.

"I'm not lying and you know that."

Suddenly in anger he stabbed Athena with the syringe he had been holding and pumped all the drugs into her body. Athena fell backwards into the chair with the impact.

"You're lying. You're lying." He kept chanting as he grabbed a knife from the table and began dragging Athena towards the balcony.


	13. The confrontation

"We have to assume that that was the same anesthesia that he had used on the other victims; however he has injected you with it meaning you have less than five minutes before you knock out." Stated a voice.

Athena turned around to see a tall, fair, red haired figure wearing a placid shirt and a pale pair of jeans.

"Chris?" Athena asked in bewilderment.

"Hello Ant." Replied Chris.

"What are you doing in my thought room?"

"I know you can pick the lock on those hand cuffs. All you have to do is buy yourself enough time. Start by apologizing and sound really convincing." Replied another voice. Athena recognized the voice immediately to be that of her sister Iris.

"Why are you in my thought room?" screamed Athena.

"The same reason you are here, because your brain needs to find a way to survive and apparently we can help you." Replies Iris.

"I give the medical advice, she gives you the manipulation one." Comments Chris. Iris looks at Chris with a death stare, then turns and walks towards Athena.

"Now go and save yourself." She commands and pushes Athena. Athena senses herself fall backwards and back into Louisa's lounge where James continues to drag Athena towards the balcony.

Athena quickly remembers an old trick that she learnt when she would play around with the handcuffs during her stake outs. As Athena disables her handcuffs and she starts talking to James trying to sound remorseful.

"Your daughter wasn't innocent but she didn't deserve to die the ways she did. Nobody deserves that kind of a death."

James stops for a second, looking at Athena . Athena notices tears in his eyes.

"I know she wasn't innocent, she was never innocent. But she was my daughter and anyone who'd hurt her deserve what I did to them."

"Nobody deserves that kind of a death." Athena repeats herself with a tone of warning and remorse.

"But now it's too late," James continues almost ignoring Athena's remark, and begins dragging her reaching the sliding door and sliding the door open. "I have sinned too much to repent. I can only finish."

He picks Athena up and forces her to walk out the door towards the railing, while Athena finally manages to open the handcuffs and is about to push James down; when a familiar shout echoes in the lounge.

"Metropolitan Police. Hands where I can see them or else I'll shoot."

" _Rogers? Oh God, why him_?" Athena thinks to herself, not that Ethan was a bad partner or a bad officer but he was like everyone else. He saw things but never observed them, heard but never listened and at this point she needed someone who could observe the situation rather than try the good cop hostage situation.

James immediately places the knife at Athena's throat and places her in front of him, to protect himself, Athena turned to face the room and noticed both Ethan and Sherlock.

"Sherlock?" Athena says in relief.

Sherlock slightly nods his head to confirm his presence to Athena. Athena then guides him with her eyes towards her hands which she signals is free and she can defend herself.

"I'll slit her throat. And she'll be dead before you could pump a bullet in me." James screams towards Ethan. Whilst pressing the knife against Athena's throat.

"Put the gun down Rogers. Last thing we need in this apartment is more blood than that has already been drawn."

Ethan looks at Sherlock in confusion but he gives him a reassuring look. Ethan puts his weapon down. Athena seeing a chance pushes James right arm holding the knife, and knees him in the stomach with her left arm. James who had been expecting an attack from Athena's side, in one strong blow brings back the knife and stabs Athena in the stomach, making her bleed and fall back at the railings. He again tries to stab her however Athena deflects this attack by barricading her body with her arms which get stabbed instead. Ethan, horrified at the sight of his partner's blood, draw the gun without warning and shoots James repeatedly whilst getting closer to him with every shot. The final shot pushes James over the railing and fall down towards his dead. The sound of his body crashing and skull cracking fills the empty alleyway. Which are then replaced by a few shrieks of the passersby.

Athena falls down on the balcony floor and stares at her own blood pumping out of her body. Between the anesthesia taking effect and the blood loss, she begins to feel drowsiness.

"I repeat I need men at Building 334 West Street immediately." Ethan talks into the phone and Sherlock rushes over to Athena. Takes off his coat and covers Athena's stomach wounds to stop the bleeding.

"We can't wait for paramedics; she'll die before they get here." Shouts Sherlock, after analyzing Athena's injuries.

"Pick her up and come on." Shouts Ethan. Sherlock quickly picks her up and begins carrying her in his arms whilst running out of the apartment building and getting into Ethan's car. Ethan shouts at the police officers who arrive what to do and Sherlocks tries to hold Athena by pushing her legs up so that the blood flow remains down.

Ethan quickly enters the car and begins driving with the siren blaring through the roof at full speed. Sherlock realizes that Athena has fainted and pours the water out of the water bottle he noticed a few seconds ago in an attempt to wake her up. Athena responds with a grunt and eyes opening.

"Sorry about that, you need to stay awake. Medical procedure." Sherlock responds with a smile.


	14. The fall out

Athena opens her eyes and realizes that she is lying on a cold floor; she jerks herself up and looks around only to see whiteness all around her. Even the dress she is wearing is white and she could have sworn her skin looked a bit too pale. She couldn't even identify whether she was in a room or out in the open.

All she saw was whiteness.

"Well, hello there." A familiar voice greeted her.

Athena jerks herself up and gets into a defensive position. She turns to face the voice only to see Sherlock.

"Sherlock?" Athena asks in confusion.

Sherlock standing a few feet away from her, with a clever smile on his face, wearing the same old suit she has always seen him wearing.

"What's going on? Where am I? And why am I wearing this white dress?"

"You are dead, you're in probably the afterlife or some variant of it and this is you dealing with your unfortunate death."

"Excuse me? I can't be dead." Athena sees a flash of herself in the police car in Sherlock's arms who attends to her wounds, "I clearly remember you attending to my wounds. And if I remember clearly I wasn't stabbed that badly, I know that because I have been stabbed twice before in my life, so I couldn't have died that easily." Athena starts pacing around for a minute before continuing, "Secondly if I am dead and this is the afterlife, what are you doing here?"

Sherlock chuckles slightly, scratches his face a bit whilst staring at her for a second and then begins walking towards her, "You know I did try to save you but you wouldn't let me, you wanted to die."

"What?" Athena asks in confusion, she sees a flash of herself pushing Sherlock away from bandaging her and crying about letting her die.

"You said you were tired of living your life and tired of fighting and losing so you kept resisting my help until I had to give up. Secondly," Sherlock was now up and front with Athena, "I might not believe in an afterlife but I deeply believe in the ability of a human mind to have conscious and meaningful thoughts even unconsciously. It is possible that you are dead physically but not in terms of your consciousness."

"You mean a coma?"

"Just a theory, nothing I can really prove. Also, I am not really here as the person I am just a representation of your perception of well me." Sherlock concludes with a wide smile. "My purpose here is simply one that you need to fulfill. Why your subconscious chose to manifest its thought process as me is something you have to answer for yourself."

Athena paced around and thought to herself and then looked straight into Sherlock's face who was now awfully close to her. Athena feeling vulnerable started, "I don't want to die Sherlock. Not like this at least." Athena could feel tears swelling up in her eyes.

"I have had a lot of time to think about life, about my existence, my insecurities, my relationships, myself and I have realized that for the past five years I have solved innumerable amount of cases, saved so many lives and put so many criminals behind bars and yet I have managed to completely and utterly destroy my own life in the process. I can't form meaningful relationships, and those that I form I self-sabotage and I have been estranged with my family for so long that when I saw them in my thought room I almost didn't recognize them."

Athena falls to the ground thinks back to her estranged family, her lack of success at maintaining the most important relations and her lack of success at how her life was supposed to turn out. It made her question whether she deserved to have a good life especially since she couldn't manage to keep things together when the first bit of the hard life of being a police officer hit her with the Clarke case."

"I did this to myself you know. All my life I had made myself to believe that I was entitled to success and easiness in life because I was smarter and stronger than all of my batch mates. And I mean all of them Sherlock, I was the most clever person since I was in kindergarten. And when life hit me and I realized that my gift or potential wasn't going to be enough I fell apart. And I honestly don't think I ever got back together." Athena moves her hand to her chest and stomach where she feels her stab wounds two from five years ago and the recent one.

"Maybe I deserved what I got, and just need to accept that." Athena turned her attention to Sherlock who seemed to have been listening patiently, "Thank you for trying to save me but I am not strong or functional enough to survive the world." Athena stated with a broken smile.

Sherlock stood in silence before he started, "Athena, I need to remember that I am merely a manifestation of your own thought processes so as I say this you need to know that's it's really your own subconscious that believes what I am saying."

Athena felt like laughing, her brain was doing a wonderful job at impersonating Sherlock.

"What you experience would have been not fair in any person's case, whether that person grew in utter hardship or great comfort. The only difference is that the person would have handled the situation more appropriately and not gone berserk like you. With me saying that, you handled the situation the best way you possibly could. And it was the pain and the hardship that made you a better detective than you could have ever been without it. However, with James gone I hope that you will try to fix your life and live it the way you had always wanted to."

"Wait a minute, you said I was dead." Athena interjected.

"People tend to wake up from coma." Sherlock replied.

"Okay, now you are just changing statements…" Sherlock suddenly came very close to Athena she could almost feel his body heat, smell his scent and feel his breathe on her.

"Sherlock.." Athena started trying to create distance between them. But before she could have moved an inch, Sherlock put his right hand on her chin and lifted it to face him, "I want you to live your life fully Athena and use the pain and anger you feel inside to make you more empathic than destructive. I think you owe yourself some happiness that you have denied yourself for so long."

"Sherlock…" that was all Athena could muster before Sherlock bend down to kiss her. The kiss felt real, Sherlock's hands on her face felt real, her inability to stop herself from kissing him back felt real. It began occurring to Athena that it couldn't be her mind projecting this since she didn't know what a kiss was suppose feel like. She had never kissed anyone before.

Finally Sherlock let her go and the first thing Athena asked was, "Are you real?"

Sherlock passed a faint smile and said, "I can guarantee you that none of this is real."

"No, no," Athena started as she backed away from Sherlock, "this has to be real because I don't know what it feels like to be kissed and what just happened felt too real to be me imaging it."

Sherlock came close to her again and held her by her shoulders, "Man=ybe you have kissed before and you can't recall."

"But I am not even attracted to you so why did I imagine you?"

"Interestingly I can answer that for you; it's because you feel like you can relate to me more than anyone else, even more than Greg, or your family. It's because you believe that we are cut from the same cloth even if we were woven differently."

Athena thought back to all of her conversations and meetings with Sherlock she had had so far. It was true when it came down to it she felt that she could trust him after herself. Athena looked up and met Sherlock's gaze, she wasn't physically attracted to him, that much was certain. Rather it was the sense of familiarity and mental understanding that somehow made her gravitate towards him. Athena closed her eyes and pulled Sherlock's face towards her own. This time it was she who kissed him and him who kissed her back.

It still felt real and amazing.

Suddenly a loud crashing noise began filling Athena's ears she broke her embrace and realized that the whole room was crashing and the ceiling was apparent breaking and falling. Sherlock went only a step back and an entire ceiling piece fell on him, Athena stared in horror. She couldn't even manage a voice out of her mouth. She continued witnessing the entire place crumble to ashes until the final piece of the ceiling fell upon her. The only other noise she could her other than that of the crumbling was her own scream.

* * *

Had the block killed her on the spot perhaps it wouldn't have been bad but she was alive and awake and the pain she felt on her body was beyond excruciating and the pit black darkness wasn't helping her either. This intense pain and darkness finally forced her to scream.

Athena screamed and continued screaming, she might have started crying she couldn't tell the only thing she could feel was pain.

As she continued screaming she felt hands on herself, those hands were pushing her back to the ground and she resisted their force and continued to scream.

"Athena stop, relax you are safe. Get away from her, you're hurting her." Said a distant voice. Suddenly the hands disappeared and so did the pain, Athena dared to open her eyes but it was no longer pitch black. She could see some light however it was all still blurry.

"Please help me." That was all Athena could croak out of her mouth.

"Athena you are okay. You are safe. It's me Greg, don't worry."

"Greg?" Athena vision began clearing up and she could now see a slightly blurry figure that looked like Greg. "Please lift me up."

Greg helped Athena sit up on the hospital bed and she could see a male and a female nurse staring at her and some machines hooked to her.

Athena looked at Greg "What happened?"


	15. The confession

**Author's Note:**

 _ **Hey guys!**_

 _ **Sorry for the month long hiatus (my bad).**_

 _ **Will try my utmost best to keep uploading chapters more frequently and please feel free to give your input it is always appreciated.**_

 _ **And yeah, Enjoy!**_

* * *

"Miss Leonard, you look good and your tests seem clear but because of your slightly violent episode we will have keep you here for another 12 hours more just to be safe."

"I understand, thank you doctor." Replies Athena as she repositions herself on the bed.

After the vivid dream Athena had, Greg calmed her down and explained to her about what had happened. Sherlock and Ethan had driven her to the hospital, but her vitals and blood pressure had dropped dangerously low because of which she had entered a coma like state. She had been like this for over a week and Greg had been staying with her the entire time.

"Greg," Athena held Greg hand, "thank you for staying by my side and begin here for me. You should go home and rest." Athena commented with a smile.

Greg looked at Athena with disbelief and replied, "No."

Athena finding behavior highly odd, continued persuading, "Greg, I'm sure you are tired. Don't worry about me. I'm fine now. I'm safe."

Greg kept staring at her with a pit of anger in his face, he impatiently walked back and forth in the room before saying, " Athena do you understand that you could have died."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Athena replied sarcastically.

"I'm serious Athena. I almost lost you, and it happened on my watch, when I had promised that I would be there for you."

"Greg, nobody saw this happening, well I knew there was a chance but I thought it out and it went almost as I had planned." Athena explained.

"And you didn't think that telling us about this possibility wasn't important. You didn't think telling me this was important?"

"Greg, why are you getting upset? I am alive, my plan worked."

"So part of your plan was getting nearly killed?"

"Hey none of the alternatives had a 100% success rate and when he showed up at the police office I knew I had to take this one. So I'm sorry if you didn't get a chance to save me dramatically from the bad guy but I did what was necessary to protect everyone."

Greg passed a snarl at her, "You really haven't changed one bit have you? You still think that nobody is as strong or smart as you and hence relying on another person is beyond your comprehension. If Ethan and Sherlock hadn't been there, you would have died."

"If Ethan and Sherlock hadn't been there I wouldn't have gotten stabbed, because James wouldn't have had a chance to think because I would have disarmed him and threw him from the balcony and then called for backup. Besides, Ethan and Sherlock would have not been there in the first place had I not hinted Sherlock in the first place so I do trust other people. And finally if I frustrate you so much then leave because I am in no mood for whatever you are feeling okay?"

Greg began leaving but stopped midway.

"I can't leave you not anymore." He replied as he turned around.

"Why?"

"Because I know you too well, I know that you tend to push people away when you need them the most because you don't understand vulnerability. Because I made a promise to stay by your side and I don't break my promise." Greg began walking towards her.

"I am aware of that habit of yours."

"Athena I am still angry at you." Greg commented as he sat down on the bed opposite to her.

"I can sense that."

"But I'm assuming that you probably don't understand where this anger is coming from or why."

"I don't." Athena replied. Athena felt tension rising between them that she couldn't explain but when Greg started moving himself in her direction and holding her face with his hands she understood what was going on.

Greg kissed her and then pulled back and continued, "Athena I have loved you since our university days and even when I was with Victoria you were the one truth that could not be changed. That's why I was angry when I thought I had lost you, I was angry because I am tired of losing you. I don't want to wait anymore for the right time; I don't want to live in the fear of losing you, not anymore."

Athena was in a bit of shock, especially after the very vivid dream that she had about Sherlock, Greg's sudden confession felt too much.

"I know that you love me as well even if you are too afraid to admit it. So I'll wait when you're ready."

Athena felt Greg slipping from her fingers and like him she was tired of fearing of losing him. She needed him, wanted him and loved him even if she couldn't get herself to admit that. Hence, without a single word she pulled Greg back, surprising even him, and slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She kissed him with the intensity of all the times she resisted, for all the times she missed him and all the times she thought that she felt that nobody functional could understand or love her.


	16. The questions

The kiss was broken by a loud cough.

It was Sherlock.

Athena felt her heart skip a beat when she saw Sherlock, not because she had a very vivid dream about kissing him or because she had realized that she was slightly attracted to him but because he was wearing the same suit from her dream and Athena never believed in coincidence.

It felt very eerie.

"Sherlock, uhm I was going to get some tea would you like some?" started Greg, who was out of breath and pink from the kiss.

"Black, 2 sugar cubes." Sherlock replied monotonously.

"Athena?" Greg asked.

"No I am good." Athena tried to eye Greg to stay but Greg didn't understand the cue and left the room.

It was quiet and she was alone with Sherlock.

Sherlock placed one of the two bouquets he was carrying on the bedside.

"Who's the other for?" Athena asked curiously.

"Mary." Sherlock replied as he stood near Athena's bed. Athena felt confused for a moment before she recalled Mary's pregnancy.

"Isn't she a bit early?" Athena asked after the introspection.

"Just a week." Sherlock looked around the room and then continued, "Well I came here on behalf of John and Mary to look at how you were progressing, you seem to be in a good shape and I'll give them the report."

Athena chuckled.

Sherlock gave a small smile.

 _It was exactly like the way he smiled in her dream._

Athena realized she needed answers. Maybe something had happened between them during the car ride that could explain her dream. She saw Sherlock beginning to leave.

"Sherlock?" Athena asked.

"Yes." Sherlock replied.

"Can you stay until Greg comes back?"

"Of course." Sherlock replied and took the seat next to her bed.

Athena hesitantly started, "Thank you for saving my life Sherlock. I know I didn't make it any easy for you with all the resistance I put up."

Sherlock looked at her in confusion, "You remember that?"

"Flashes of it." Athena corrected him.

"You are welcome." Sherlock replied without any affection or sincerity.

After a minute Athena began, "Sherlock, did anything happen while I was unconscious?"

"Well a lot of things happened, Ethan screamed at an old woman who tried to overtake us, he crossed ten red lights and he…" Sherlock started.

"Between us?" Athena added.

"Excuse me?" Sherlock asked confused.

"I mean did I say or do anything….. Significant."

Sherlock was quiet for a minute before he started, "Well you talked about your family and yourself and ….. You asked me to do something."

"What did I ask you to do?" Athena asked fearing the answer would be something to do with the kiss.

"Here we go." At that exact moment Greg re-entered the room, carrying two cups of tea in Styrofoam cups. He put one on the bedside and sat down with his cup at the foot of the bed.

"What did I ask you to do Sherlock?" Athena asked persistently completely ignoring Greg.

Sherlock took a deep breath and continued, "You asked me not to call your family."

"What?"

"Yeah Sherlock told me that you gave strict orders not to call your parents under any circumstances." Greg confirmed.

Athena was both happy and confused. Happy because that meant that the kiss was just a figment of her imagination and confused as to how her brain racked up such a vivid experience. However she needed to find out more about what happened during that car ride. Before she could have formed another question Sherlock's phoned ringed, he looked at the caller ID and started getting up, "Well I better best get going. John needs me to help him look after Mary. Athena get well soon."

Sherlock picked up the other bouquet and began leaving when Athena asked, "Hey Sherlock?"

"Yes."

"Anything else that I should know?" Athena asked once again.

Sherlock thought for a minute and replied, "Nothing I can think of." And left.

* * *

Greg and Athena spent the next few hours talking about generally the events that had surrounded the case and its effect on them. When it became apparent to Greg that that conservation still had a heavy impact on Athena, he steered the conversation to lighter notes about their relationship, how long he had been in love, and how her return into his life was the greatest source of happiness. Athena, who wasn't very used to this type of admiration or honesty spent most of the time silently listening and blushing intensely when Greg's confession had become too much for Athena she kissed him passionately hoping to shut him up.

"You always were a woman of action rather than words."Greg teased Athena after the kiss.

"Greg." Athena replied surprised by his response.

It had been a one of the best evenings in Athena's life.

Mrs. Hudson came to visit Athena at night and stayed there until news confirming Mary's delivery came through. By then Athena had been too tired to stay awake, hence Greg told her to go to sleep whilst he and Mrs Hudson would visit Mary on her behalf.

The next morning after her final checkup, she was discharged from the hospital from where she zip lined to Mary's room to greet the little baby girl that had been born.

"Congratulations Mary." Athena nearly screamed when she entered the room and saw Mary and John admiring their daughter.

"Athena." Mary replied tiredly but with a wide smile and embraced Athena.

"John congratulations." Athena continued.

"Well thank you though really it was all Mary's effort."

Mary looked at John with slight annoyance. Then turned her attention towards Athena and asked, "Would you like to hold her?"

"Yes." Athena grabbed the baby who seemed much content and very pink. "What's her name?"

"Rosie." John replied.

"Really Mary? Rosie?" Athena asked in disbelief she had been very well aware that Mary's actual name was Rosie before she change it to hide her identity.

Mary only laughed and asked, "Athena, how would you like to be little Rosie's Godmother?'

Athena felt shocked, she was honored to be given such importance, "A thousand times yes." Athena replied.

"Okay my turn to hold Rosie." Said Greg as he grabbed Rosie and began cradling her.

Athena introspected at the sight she saw, Mary and John happy, Greg and her finally a couple, Greg playing with Rosie and Athena being made a god mother. Athena for the first time in a very long time felt genuinely happy.

 _Do I deserve to feel happy?_

She thought about Sherlock had told her in the thought room _, "I think you owe yourself some happiness that you have denied yourself for so long."_

 _I do deserve to be happy and I need to strive to make it last._


	17. The safe haven

_**I do deserve to be happy and I need to strive to make it last.**_

Athena thought about her epiphany once again, when she had settled down into Greg's car.

It had occurred to her that it was not enough to just get happiness she had to work on it and she needed to let herself be vulnerable and willing to let Greg in if the relationship was going to work and she knew where exactly to start.

"Greg?" Athena asked as Greg was putting the car into ignition.

"Yeah?" Greg responded absentmindedly as he looked back to reverse the car.

Athena catching her breath replied, "Do you want to move in together?"

Greg's head suddenly jerked towards athena as he released his foot off the accelerator, with a raised brow. He tried to hide his smile as he asked with concern, "Athena I understand that that experience was very traumatic but there is no need to rush anything after all we just got together."

"Greg we have been in love with each other for the past eight years. I think it's time we moved to the next step."

"Personally, I don't have any problem with that. But are you ready?"

Athena saw the events of last week play out that lead up to the kiss in her head as she replied, "More than I will ever be."

* * *

A day later Athena had left her old apartment and moved in with Greg. The old apartment that Mary and Athena had shared for three years got rented out to a trio of friends whom Athena wished well and hoped that they would make great memory there.

Greg and Athena spent nearly a month setting up the apartment to a mutually agreeable set up. Athena, who would hate these types of mundane task found a strange sense of happiness when she did them with Greg.

Athena had never been more happier in her life, at least not that she could recall. After much presuasion from Greg, Athena met up with her family though she did not tell them about Greg since they both had decided to keep their relationship on the low profile given the nature of their jobs. Athena didn't mind, in fact she was glad she wouldn't have to answer silly questions of her sisters in law.

Between being Rosie's godmother and living with Greg, Athena found a kind of happiness that no case she had solved could have helped her achieve.

* * *

Greg and Athena had been dating for nine months now and though she was no in rush to get married, ever since a very drunk John had accidentally slipped that Greg had purchased a ring from a very expensive jewelry shop, Athena had been very excitedly looking forward to have Greg pop the question.

A week after John's revelation, Greg had called Athena when she was at work and told her that they should go on a special dinner to celebrate their relationship. Despite growing up disinterested in her femininity, she wanted to look good for the dinner whether or not he would ask the question.

"Where are you going?" Ethan asked

"Taking an early off, I am going shopping." Athena had replied.

"You skipping work to go shopping? Is doomsday finally here?" Ethan remarked sarcastically.

Athena was too excited to care about his comment and exited the building.

* * *

Athena had been browsing around the shopping complex for an hour when a familiar face from across the building caught her eyes.

It was Molly.

Athena couldn't believe it, she hadn't seen her around since Rosie's birth which was quite odd. They had met at Mary's baby shower and became acquaintance through the James Clarke case. And though Athena barely knew anything about Molly, she enjoyed the few conversations they had.

Athena quickly ran towards her, Molly was looking at a window display of a kid's clothes store, when she had almost reach Molly and was about to call her out, Molly returned to go in the shop and that's when she noticed something about Molly that had almost missed while she had been standing away from her.

Molly was nine months pregnant.


	18. The decision

_"I am sorry Greg, I can't be with you anymore. Not like this."_

It had been twelve hours since his fight with Athena and two hours since his brain had registered that she was gone.

Greg chuckled to himself how twelve hours ago he thought he had thought that tonight would be the most memorable and best night of his life. Tonight had been memorable but definitely the worst night.

It had been seven hours but Greg hadn't moved an inch from the coach. He kept replaying the conversation in his head again and again.

 _"I still love you Greg and I will always love you. God knows how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you but everything has changed and I can't live with the guilt that I stopped somebody else from a normal life because I was selfish. I am a very selfish person Greg, but not that selfish."_

Greg head kept spinning, he hadn't slept the entire night, and he was emotionally and physically exhausted. He thought of sleeping in but he was too afraid of going to his room. Afraid that his memories with Athena would keep him up, in fact he was too afraid to sleep on the coach, hence he didn't move from his position.

Greg suddenly saw his phone vibrate it was Sally.

"Oh God." Greg replied under his breathe, he saw the time on his phone it was 9:00 AM. He was supposed to be at the office, he was supposed to be celebrating his engagement. He was supposed to be happy and having the best time of his life.

But that didn't happen.

Instead he had been sitting here on the coach in his day old suit with the engagement ring in his pocket untouched.

With Athena gone, Greg had to make a lot of decisions.

But he needed facts first.

He grabbed his phone, and swiped through his contacts, and pressed the 'call' button.

The phone ringed three times before it got picked up.

"Greg?" A familiar voice said.

"Molly where are you? We need to talk." Replied Greg.


	19. The decisions (part 2)

Athena stared at the bottle on the shelf.

She had been staring at it for so long that she had lost sense of time. When an old lady accidently bummed her cart into her, Athena snapped out of her trance and found herself reaching for the bottle. She had never had a drink in her life (it hindered her ability to think clearly) and she hadn't planned on ever starting. But after her confrontation with Molly and her conversation with Greg, she wanted to forget about everything. Mary, Greg and John all used to talk about how it helped release stress and anger and she needed that.

She really needed that.

She found herself reaching for the bottle of Vodka when suddenly she sees remembers her sister Iris and her hand stops.

Iris was an alcoholic and even though it never affected her work it affected her marriage. Last Athena saw her four years ago Iris and her husband were still separated and he had the custody of their son.

Athena jerks her hand away from the bottle and instead grabs her face and grunts through.

"Athena dear? Is that you?" an old voice asks.

Athena lets go of her face and sees Mrs. Hudson standing with a cart containing seven bottles of alcohol and 10 tea packs.

"Are you okay me dear?" asked a concerned Mrs. Hudson, who has now moved away from the cart and is approaching her. Athena jumps at her and hugs her tight and let the tears flow which she didn't realize were coming strong.

"I am not okay. I'm really not okay."

"Don't worry dear. Everything will be fine" Replied Mrs Hudson as she pats Athena and kisses her on the head.

* * *

"I didn't tell her anything." Molly started defensively, breaking the silence that had been in the air for a while.

Molly and Greg had met up at a coffee shop next to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Molly had only ordered water and Greg ordered an extra strong black coffee to help him stay awake for a very long day.

"She is smart Molly. I had initially told her about our little fling and when she saw you like that, it was two plus two for her."

Molly was silent for a moment. Greg rubbed his head and continued, "Why didn't you tell me? I had a right to know."

Molly sighed and started "I wanted to tell you; but you and Athena seemed so happy together that I felt this would ruin it."

Greg looked at Molly skeptically.

"Honestly, I couldn't recall seeing you this happy so I thought that I would keep it a secret."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Replied Greg sarcastically.

Molly let out a deep breathe she was obviously starting to get annoyed. Molly kept wondering why they were sitting over here in the first place, Greg didn't care about the kid and he was still depressed about Athena leaving him because.. why did she leave him, Molly wondered.

"Why did Athena leave you? If you had already told her about us in the beginning and she was okay with it, so what changed?

"She wants me to be with you."

Molly looked at Greg with confusion

"For the kid."

Molly signaled Greg to explain further.

"She just wanted to make sure that the kid grew up in a healthy household. You know the conventional household of a mother and father living together taking care of the kid."

"Children with single or separated parents can grow up as healthy adults as well." Molly corrected.

"Not according to where she comes from. Athena literally came from a town where everyone had conventional family system. Parents are living together and contributing equally to the children's wellbeing. This is the lifestyle children from her town have seen."

" _That's why her sister's separation was such a surprise to everyone"_ Greg thought.

"That's really strange." Molly commented.

Greg chuckled and continued, "Molly listen I understand that for the past 8 months you have been alone in on this but I want to also be a part of our…Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Boy."

"I want to be a part of our son's life. When we agreed to hook up that night, we had also agreed to deal with any subsequent consequence that would occur. If this kid is a result of our decision than I am ready to stand by him and raise him to the best of my capability."

"What about Athena? What about being with the woman you love? Are you going to just give up on her?

Greg recalled when Iris had split up with her husband, their son Edmund was emotionally affected by the whole situation. Previously, he had been this sweet and kind child but had become distant and withdrawn. Athena had tried really hard to take care of her nephew but it was to no avail. This made Athena believed that she had failed to save him.

This made her never wanting to see another kid suffer as a result of his parent's problems or mistakes.

Even if the mistake was made before he was born.

"When you know someone as well as I know Athena, all of their actions make so much sense that you don't bother disagreeing with them."

Looking straight into Molly's eyes he continues, "I love her with all of my heart and I know that she hates her decision and is regretting it terribly but I also know that she will stand by it because her moral compass always forces her to sacrifice herself for others. And if loves me enough to walk away from me to give my son a chance at a real family then I love her enough to get my act together and try to be the best father to my son."

Molly felt moved.

A few minutes had passed in more silence when Molly realized the time and informed, "Uh my break is almost over."

"Oh sorry about that, I should also get going." Commented Greg, and after a second pause continued, "So I was thinking that I could shift into your apartment once the baby is born."

Molly looked at Greg in confusion

"So that I can help you out?" Greg continued, "I would offer mine but I only have one bedroom and that would be weird." Greg started to regret almost saying anything at all.

"Yeah, okay I guess." replied Molly while grabbing her bag. Molly struggled a bit to get up and Greg came forward and helped her get up from her seat and dropped her at the Hospital's door.

"Thank you." Molly thanked softly as she began making her way into the building.

"Molly listen I know that this whole arrangement is going to be weird but I promise to not mention Athena too much and make you feel awkward. And I also promise to take care of our son to the best of my ability and I hope that we can regain the level of comfort we had prior to everything that has happened."

Molly looks at Greg with a slight smile. Greg also passes a slight smile.

"Well I best be going." Gregg begins walking a few steps away when Molly calls out.

"Greg?"

"Yeah?"

"I have an appointment at six with the doctor," tapping at her stomach, "if you want to join?"

This time Greg's smile came naturally as he responded, "I would love to."

* * *

"So you broke up with Greg on the night he was going to propose to you because you want him and Molly to give their child a good life. But at the same time you feel angry and depressed at your decision because you finally had a good thing in your life and now it's gone?"

"Yup. That's the jist of it." Athena responds after taking a sip of her tea.

Mrs. Hudson had brought back Athena to 221B, and offered her a tea before Athena broke down in tears and told her everything.

"Well I am going to need a drink first." Mrs. Hudson replied whilst opening a bottle of wine.

Athena laughs a bit and continues drinking her tea.

"I honestly don't know what to say to comfort you dear." She sits down beside her with a wine glass.

"You listened to my story and offered me tea. That was good enough thank you." Athena looks at her watch and realizes that it's been six hours since she came here, "I should get going I have taken up so much of your time."

"Oh not at all dear. However, Athena if you don't mind me asking where will you be living?"

"Excuse me?" Athena asking

"Well obviously you are going to move out of Greg's apartment. Where will you stay?"

"I don't know." Athena replies slightly overwhelmed by the realization that she would once again have to start an apartment hunt and she couldn't even go back to her old apartment building since somebody had already rented it out long before she even left.

"Well there is a room on the second floor of the building. It was previously John's but you can have it."

"What?" asked Athena in confusion.

"John's old room you can rent it out."

"Oh no you have already done so much for me. I couldn't possibly ask for anything more." Athena replied as she started moving out.

"Don't be absurd. Mrs. Hudson is absolutely right." Commented Sherlock who emerged from the hallway.

"Sherlock have you been eavesdropping?"

"Not intentionally. I was just hanging my coat when I overhead the conversation. Athena you more than welcome to stay in John's room. However, I must warn you that I tend to play the violin when I'm thinking and sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Otherwise I am sure you will find the apartment quite comfortable and our company quite pleasant. " He passed Athena a small smile that seemed to reassure confidence to her and continued on with a straight face, "Mrs. Hudson. I'll have my tea in my room please." And swiftly exited the room.

"I'm not your maid, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson announced after Sherlock.

"Athena dear you should take the offer while it's on the table. Sherlock doesn't just offer things to people you know."

"Yes I am aware of that." Replied Athena.

"So I'll be seeing you tomorrow with your luggage? Asked Mrs. Hudson, as if the entire apartment conflict had been settled.

Athena on any given day would have excused herself but for once she decided to be a pain for someone else and just accept an offer while she had it.

"Yes. Definitely."


End file.
